


Help me, help you

by Urban_Red_Fox



Category: Elementary (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-02-07
Updated: 2013-02-23
Packaged: 2017-11-28 12:43:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,853
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/674527
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Urban_Red_Fox/pseuds/Urban_Red_Fox
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Damaged people can understand each other, but sometimes death comes in the way. Joan finds out that maybe she's not the only one who could help Sherlock a little when it came to Irene's death.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Captain Gregson wasn’t surprised to see Sherlock Holmes approaching the crime scene. As usual, he had probably been listening to the frequency they used, showing up to help whether they asked for it or not. The consultant ran a hand through his hair, and Gregson, for the first time, noticed a hint of surprise in Joan’s eyes as she looked over at him.

The young woman, who was in her mid-twenties, was lying on the ground, in a middle of a deserted and dirty alley. The body wouldn’t have been found for days if a homeless woman hadn’t been walking around, tripping in the victim’s stretched arm shortly before the sun rose above New York.

“Her name is Amanda Weinberg,” Gregson spoke up, motioning towards the body with his pen. “Twenty-five years old event organizer, strangled to death.” He stopped for a second to take a breath, watching how Joan crosser her arms while letting out a sigh. Before he could say anything, she spoke up.

“Amanda was suffering from depression. We met her at a group therapy session about two months ago,” she explained. “If I remember correctly her family believed she was sometimes lying about her condition so her doctor would prescribe a higher amount of her medication.”

As she was talking, Sherlock knelt next to the body, taking a closer look at the victim’s neck. “Actually that was about ten weeks ago and she was bipolar which explains her mood swings and odd behavior. She had a hypomanic episode around the time of that session.”

Joan gave him a confused look. “I don’t remember her mentioning that.”

“Because she didn’t,” Sherlock replied quickly without looking up at them, reaching for her bag that lay next to her head. “Admitting it would have made things more difficult, since her job was stressful and it explained her depression. But this kind of disorder might have a different reason, so she decided to lie.”

“You sound sure about this,” Captain Gregson noted seriously.

As the consultant pulled out the purse from the bag, he started talking. “She told me herself a week after that session,” he said, checking the credit cards and the money. “It wasn’t a robbery, even though she had an unusually large amount of cash with her.”

“You never mentioned you kept in contact with her,” Joan told him quietly, crouching next to him to look at a small wound on the dead woman’s wrist. Gregson was talking to an officer not far away from them so they were alone for a few minutes. “Was that the only time you talked to her?”

“No. ”

“I don’t suppose you were friends.”

“Obviously we weren’t. When she had a hypomanic episode her sexual drive increased and I could use this to satisfy my own needs quite often.”

Joan raised her hands. “Alright, that was too much information. But Sherlock, if you know anything that can help...”

“Captain Gregson,” Sherlock called out, standing up as the man approached them. “I’m sure the autopsy will confirm it, but she was five weeks pregnant.”

“How do you know about that?”

“I was trying to contact her for days but apparently she didn’t want to talk to me, so two days ago I went to her apartment. After she finally opened the door, Amanda told me she hadn’t answer my calls because she found out she was pregnant.”

This sentence caused both of them to remain silent for long seconds. Joan was struggling to believe the possibility that her assumption was right but, after all, it made sense after what Sherlock told him. On the other hand, Gregson was surprised for a different reason: he hadn’t mentioned this until now even though pregnancy was a damn good motive.

Sherlock watched them with sheer interest, probably trying to deduce them, figuring out what they were thinking. As he thought, it was Joan who spoke up first, massaging her forehead with her hand.

“You say Amanda didn’t want to talk to you because she was pregnant,” she started, hesitating. “I hope you’re not trying to tell us it was your child.”

“No,” he replied as her phone’s ringtone went off. Sherlock grabbed it and checked the caller ID. “It’s her husband, Jack Weinberg. He’s due to be back from a business trip in a few days. About her pregnancy, I only mentioned it because I believe the one who killed her wasn’t the father. It played an important role in what happened, but it definitely wasn’t the killer’s motive.”

“Why are you so sure?”

“I’ll tell you later, now I have to think. Somewhere else,” he added as he checked one last thing on her phone and wrote something in his own. “But Captain, once Mr. Weinberg arrived, call me. I want to talk to him.”

Once they were back in Sherlock’s apartment, Joan followed him to the kitchen, pouring herself a cup of coffee as she started talking. “Alright, Sherlock, what is this all about? You know far more than what you told Captain Gregson, right?” she asked, leaning her back against the counter.

“It’s a long story, Watson.”

“I have time.”

Sherlock turned away from Joan and walked into the living room, sitting on the armchair in the corner, while the woman sat on the couch. “As she talked about not being an addict on that session, I started listening to her and when later we talked to her, she gave me her number. I have to admit, she knew how to do this very discreetly, without others noticing. A couple of days later I met her and we had quite a pleasant chat about how unavailing these sessions are. But then she got a call and told the person on the other end of the line that it’s not up to them to decide when they meet because it’s her decision. I saw the caller ID and it was a woman which meant even though she was married, she had an affair with that person. And so the topic came up and it turned out that her sexual habits and her marriage was not only unusual but also very interesting.” 


	2. Chapter 2

_When you left for that wedding, I was working on a case, but I needed someone to talk to about my ideas and help me clear my head, so I asked her to come over. Then I finally remembered something important I saw on one of the pictures..._

**8 weeks ago...**

Sherlock was going through the pictures and articles he had scattered around him on the floor. He wasn’t distracted by the sound of a tennis ball repeatedly crashing into the wall, or by the sight of the woman playing with it, wearing nothing more but her red panties. Suddenly she stopped and sat on the edge of the bed, watching as Sherlock read a report.

“I’m bored, you know,” she stated quietly, flashing a meaningful smile at him as she crossed her legs. “And when I’m bored, I need to do something that occupies me. And I’m being serious here, Sherlock.”

“He didn’t want to kill the baby,” Sherlock said as he grabbed his phone and started to type a text message. “His target was the babysitter but she wasn’t there at the time,” he explained after he placed to phone next to himself on the floor. “Killing the baby would get her in trouble which would definitely make her suffer for longer than death.”

Amanda gave him a questioning look while she walked over to him and crouched down. “Who are you talking about?”

“The murderer,” he replied matter-of-factly. “The babysitter’s stepfather. I texted Captain Gregson, they can arrest him now.”

“Does it mean you’re done with the... detective stuff?”

“Deduction,” he corrected her. “And yes.”

She let out a quiet chuckle as she crawled closer, kneeling above his stretched legs. “Where were we?” Amanda put her hands around his neck, leaning close enough to place kisses along his jawline.

“You weren’t simply bored.”

“What are you talking about?” she asked, startled by the statement that came out of nowhere.

Sherlock motioned towards the bed with his head where she had sat a few minutes ago. “The tennis ball. Sometimes I do the same thing when I’m trying to concentrate on something, and you started playing with it right after you had seen the picture of the baby.”

Amanda quickly stood up and took a couple of steps back, building a safe distance between them. Keeping her eyes on him, she collected her clothes and slowly started to get dressed. She definitely lost interest in him, but was still closely listening to what he was about to say. _Good_ , he thought, _because I want to see if I’m right_.

“When you said you had depression back at the session you weren’t lying. Only the loss of your child triggered the bipolar disorder later. This is why you were playing now: you tried to find something else to avert your thoughts.”

“Don’t,” she warned him, her voice dangerously low by now.

But Sherlock didn’t listen. Or rather he didn’t care about it and decided to go on anyway. “You’re married, yet you clearly cheat on him with more than one person, not even bothering to take off your wedding ring wh...”

“I said don’t!” Amanda interrupted him angrily. “Stop talking, Sherlock, don’t start deducing me.”

“It bothers you that I figured you out, doesn’t it?”

“You don’t know anything.”

“Actually I know enough,” he stated as he got up and rushed after her, catching her wrist just before she opened the door. Amanda looked down at their hands and tried to jerk it away, but he was stronger than her and could easily drag her back to the bed. “I know why you’re seeing other men. You love your husband, but he loves you too much to give you what you want,” he said, pushing the woman on the bed and kneeling between her legs, leaning close to her face while keeping her wrists firmly in one place. “You want to be controlled. You need someone who can force you to forget everything that makes you feel sad.”

As he was talking, Sherlock started to kiss her neck, hearing as her breathing became heavier and heavier by every second, seeing how she arched her back when he ran a hand down her thigh, and his lips could feel her quickening pulse. He smiled while moving up to her earlobe, gently biting it which drew a quiet moan out of her. “See? I know enough.”

_It wasn’t only a matter of control, not in the typical dominant and submissive way. She simply needed someone to make her forget, forcing her to focus on something else. That night I found out she had lost her child and I could relate to her because of what happened to Irene. In a way, we turned to the same cure: self-destruction. In my case, drugs, in hers, affairs and needs. She was interesting and I enjoyed it, but in the end she left, right after Captain Gregson’s reply arrived._


End file.
